


le chant de la terre

by honeyedgold



Series: les contes de la nuit (tales of the night) - nightverse [2]
Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Blood, M/M, Suicide, also TODOLF AIN'T HEALTHY, and mayerling?, and this damn ship, lots of talk of death but what do you expect from this damn fandom, yeah remember the cat in mama wo bist du?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-25 03:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyedgold/pseuds/honeyedgold
Summary: vignettes in the life of a certain crown prince. or: prelude to an eternity.with sincere apologies to gustav mahler.





	1. une - la douleur

**Author's Note:**

> Come join the utter chaos [just kidding, we do regulate ourselves] that is the Elisabeth discord server [here.](https://discord.gg/M7KTb86)

_sombre et la vie, sombre la mort_

_[sorrow: dark is life, dark is death]_

Once, fleeing from your tutor - jailer? - and from the _Hofburg_ , you came upon a terrible sight. A black lark, freshly winged, trying vainly to escape the vicious paws of a cat batting at it.   
  
The dance was punctuated by small, heartrending noises of alarm and pain from the wounded creature. Stranger in a strange land - how came it here? Your books have taught you that these birds rarely venture from home; _Wien_ is hardly an open _steppe_ or frigid _Sibirien_. The larks of the capital are no kin to it. And yet it had made the journey only to meet its end.  
  
Blood roared in your ears. You lunged at the feline, seized with an unholy fury. Even now, as we sit side by side in the garden of my mind so you can finally give me your story, you are unable to explain why it was so. Perhaps the poor animal was only a way for you to retaliate against the cruelty that was visited upon you. You deserved to have a father who would not see only weakness when he looked at you. A mother who would not abandon you for her own dream world after a half-hearted fight for the right over your upbringing. A childhood that did not involve so many drills and icy baths.    
  
Or perhaps that cruelty is already in your royal blood, my dear. Child of the Wittelsbach. Those of the much-vaunted madness. You are no _Karl II von Spanien,_ but bewitched all the same.   
  
Either way, the attacker became the attacked. When you were finally exhausted, you realized what you were holding: the mangled body of a kitten. Only a few steps away, bleeding out on the ground, was the lark. Red stained the gray feather fringes on its back.   

_The song of the black lark is like that of the skylark, only more frantic._

You did not weep when the light died in its eyes. But it was a close thing nevertheless.

And yet you told your new friend, earnestly, that you killed a cat yesterday. _I can be hard and cold like the world is,_ you warbled at him, your child-self. It did not seem wrong that it was a kitten. The lark did not deserve to be tortured. It was only fair that the cat met the same fate as its victim. It was only fair.

Your friend smiled at you. No one had ever given you such a beautiful smile. His hands were so cold, yet his dark fathomless eyes were as warm as the soft glow of a fireplace.

Your heart fluttered against your ribcage like a seagull in a box half its wingspan. You ignored its plaintive cries.


	2. deux - le solitaire

_pour sécher tendrement mes larmes amères?_

_[the solitary one: to tenderly dry my bitter tears]_

_Darkling, I listen; and, for many a time…_

Even when you thought you were alone, you were not.

You heard him everywhere.

His was the voice that answered your prayers at night. Brought you ideas and names and places. Soothed you after every setback. Coaxed you whenever your conviction faltered. Trembled behind your impassioned speeches. Whispered to dictate your pen.

Mother had Heine to help write her poems. You had him. And, you suppose, the spectre of revolution.     
  
Did the voices inside your head merely take his form because they knew you would be swayed only by those dulcet tones, and none other? Terrible thoughts that would rise unbidden, striking you faster than lightning and disappearing quicker than the gleam of light on a blade. You dismissed all of them as inane. Yet in those few precious seconds before reason returned to you, there was always a burning ache within you to heed their calls.

 _Wouldn’t it just be easier,_ they whispered, _to give in? Escape from all your troubles?_ And you gave them a resounding _no_ every time _,_ even though you knew full well that you would much rather be saying _yes._

_The easy path is always wrong._

On your knees, then, my foolish little Prince. Pray to the only god that had ever heard you. Pray that he had mercy for you in the very depths of his nonexistent heart, as vast and incomprehensible as the troubled sea. After all, he was the only one capable of absolving you of your sin - the fact that you wanted him too much to bear.   

Let the song of his angels purify your soul, and we should see whether you would still enjoy the bitter taste of his mercy after that.  
  
Was your friend merely the face to your demons? Or was he their chief?  
  
Was he even your friend at all?

_I have been half in love with easeful Death._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, this was a surprisingly difficult and personal chapter to write. I tried to channel my own dealings with suicidal ideation, but I didn't want to go into too much detail. I hope I didn't go over a line somewhere...


	3. trois - les jeunes

_ bien habillés, boivent, bavardent  _

_[youth: well-dressed, drinking, chatting] _   
  


More than once you had looked at him and imagined what kissing him would be like. 

It had taken you utterly by surprise the first time your friend had leaned in from behind your back and pressed his lips upon your neck. You were unable to suppress a gasp; the men with you were momentarily distracted, but did not press the issue after you resumed the conversation. 

You glared at him later as he passed by you in the form of a waiter and received a self-satisfied smirk in response. 

It wasn’t long before the two of you started to make a game out of it. You almost always won - after all, being able to survive at court sometimes involved pretending as if nothing can affect you. 

In any case, having your friend trailing after you and whispering comments that would cause you to burst into laughter otherwise was excellent practice. You honed it into an art; only the barest twitch of the corner of your lips, indiscernible to all but those who knew you best, would betray you. 

And when you were in private? Well. Suffice it to say that whoever lost the game of the day were more than suitably chastised.

(Were you able, I thought you would have turned scarlet when you related this little fact to me. Instead I watched you smile, wistful and abashed, your head bowed.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff? In a Todolf piece inspired by MARK SEIBERT? Whose Death I like to call the "shitty Dom"? It's more likely than you think. I actually do envision Todolf having a playful relationship where they were free to be sarcastic little shits to their hearts' content.


	4. quatre - la beauté

_vibre et soupire encore l’excitation de son coeur_

_[beauty: the excitement of his heart trembles and sighs anew]_

 

The scent of decay - like a cellar stocked with forgotten relics and long-trapped air - hovered about him. You breathed deep in it, because on him it felt as fine and heady as anything that would come from Cologne.

Sometimes when you were alone together in your bedchamber, you would close your eyes and let your fingers trace, delicately, along the angles and curves that composed his form. Every line was carved out of the finest living - _living? No. Moving? Fluid? -_ marble, as if he were an Achilleus or Hyacinthus. 

You shouldn’t have gotten used to the chill that permeates the room whenever your companion visited, but you did. You even _craved_ it sometimes. Besides, warmth is commonplace, and could be found at any time at a certain discreetly-run salon. You much preferred excitement.  

You were a man of the present, always moving, improving, rebelling against the stagnation slowly choking the Empire. Nothing could bind you. He was a being of eternity and implacable destiny. He would never be able, or _willing_ , to change. And yet you loved him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I’m way too proud of myself for that one. Go look up Achilles/Patroclus, and Apollo/Hyacinth. [muffled giggling] You’ll see why I chose those two.


	5. cinq - l'homme

_ laissez-moi être ivre  _

_ [a man: let me be drunk]  _

 

There was a reason, among many others, for you to stay out of churches. The Crown Prince of Austria attends services. Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph von Habsburg did not, for he was a damned man. 

“When I’m gone, will you pray for me?”    
“Your Imperial Highness!” 

She was shocked. Good. She should be. 

You smiled at her aghast expression. There was a reason you only confided in her of your melancholy; the Countess Festetics was discreet as the grave. You suspect she would not even reveal an entrusted secret to her private diary. 

But who else would listen? Mama was only concerned whether you would harm Valerie. Papa would not want to hear these things from a soldier. And yet such talk escape you, for they demand to be heard.

One thing you learned from your royal mother: if you bury agonizing truths well under a smile, none would ever be able to divine at your heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marie Festetics was Sisi's lady-in-waiting, a noted diarist who provided us with much information about her life at court. You can refer to _A Nervous Splendor_ by Frederic Morton, one of my sources in researching Rudolf, for this conversation in its entirety. It was a conversation that the Countess remembered verbatim many years later.


	6. six - l'adieu

_éternellement, éternellement_

_[farewell: eternity, eternity]_

 

_ If I could see him again…  _

_ Eternity will be born from hope.  _

 

You are bound up in him. You cannot escape.

How do you escape from your freedom? 

He is heaven and hell and salvation and damnation and bliss and torment and and and - 

Red ran between your fingers. Blood? The stain of pomegranates?

You put the gun to your head, 

and

you

f i r e d.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And done. 
> 
> More author’s notes than you’d care to read:
> 
> This one chronicles Rudolf’s journey in canon, via the framing device of Gustav Mahler’s song cycle “Das Lied von der Erde” (The Song of the Earth), written for orchestra, tenor and alto/baritone. The chapters were titled after the portions of said song cycle, with the last line of each song inside brackets. Translations into French courtesy of Michelle Blanckaert of Kulturica. http://kulturica.com/k/musique/le-chant-de-la-terre-texte/ 
> 
> Mahler was a Jewish Austro-Bohemian composer, a contemporary of Rudolf’s (born two years after the prince). Two of his daughters fell ill with scarlet fever - Anna survived, Maria died. (Archduchess Gisela survived while her sister Sophie died from what was theorized to be typhus fever.) During his time in Vienna, Mahler was the director of the court opera (Hofoper). He wasn’t a very prolific composer, and his works were controversial in his lifetime (his time in Vienna was fraught with competition, jealousy, and general distrust from the musical circle), but his influence on music is palpable. (Yes, he’s that guy who put a hammer in a symphony.)
> 
> Did you notice the chapters getting shorter and shorter? That was very much intentional, to denote the deterioration of a certain little prince’s state of mind. 
> 
> Lots of shoutouts to other fandoms planted in here. ;)


End file.
